Rubella vaccination of schoolgirls: factors affecting vaccine uptake.

Abstract

SummaryIn a national sample of 16-year-old girls who were aged 12 when the rubella vaccine programme was implemented in 1970, 71% were reported to have received rubella vaccine. There was a high regional disparity in the uptake of rubella vaccine: 81% of girls living in Scotland had been vaccinated but only 61% of girls living in Wales. Similarly there was a difference in reported vaccine uptake according to the family social background, the lowest proportion vaccinated came from professional and unskilled manual families. Girls attending independent schools also had a lower vaccine uptake than girls in schools maintained by the local educational authorities. If rubella immunisation is to be effective uptake of vaccine must increase to almost 100%.Child Development Study5 a medical examination fprm was completed by school doctors for 11 686 children, 5541 of whom were girls. The results of a physical examination and details of the child's medical history, including a question whether the child had been vaccinated against rubella, were available. This information was obtained from interviews with the girls or their parents and from school medical records, which were available for the majority. Of the 5541 girls with completed medical forms, information on rubella vaccine uptake was available for 5097. For the remaining 444 (8(") it was not known if rubella vaccine had been given or the question had not been answered.The reported uptake of rubella vaccine was examined by region, social class (the latter being defined according to the father's occupation6) and the type of school attended. Of the 5097 girls, 3621 (71 %) were reported to have received rubella vaccine but there were considerable regional differences in vaccine uptake (see figure). The highest proportion of girls vaccinated was in Scotland and the South of England, and the lowest was in the North of England and Wales.When the uptake of rubella vaccine was examined according to the child's socioeconomic background, the highest proportion of Introduction Rubella vaccines became available in Britain in 1970, and in the same year a selective vaccination programme was introduced in which girls between their 11th and 14th birthdays were offered vaccine at school without preliminary serological tests for susceptibility to rubella. In the first phase priority was given to the older girls-that is, those aged 13.1 Further recommendations were made by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and

The immunoglobulin M response to rubella vaccine in young adult women

“…However, this is consistent with the poor uptake of vaccine by schoolgirls during the 1970s (Peckham, Marshall & Dudgeon, 1977). Either because they had missed vaccination at school through individual refusal or administrative failure, or because they were too old, 14 % of the women sampled were possibly at risk from rubella at the time of the study.…”

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A review of child health in the 1958 birth cohort: National Child Development Study

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